French War of Yucatan

The French War of Yucatan (30 July 1861-), also known as the 4th British War of French Containment, was a war between the Second French Empire and Mexico that was fought over the Mexican state of Yucatan (and later Morelos), which the French sought to acquire. The context of the war went back to 1803, when the French sold the Louisiana Territory (one-third of North America) to the United States for only $15,000,000, losing their main land base in the Americas. Shortly after, Haiti won its revolution against the French, and France had only the Windward Islands (specifically Guadeloupe and Martinique) and French Guiana (which was, at the time, occupied by anarcho-liberals) as colonies in the Americas. Hoping to establish a new land colony in North America, Emperor Napoleon decided to pack up an army of 22,000+ French troops under Robert Boulanger (mainly troops from the towns of Nancy, Chaumont, and Lille in the east and north of France) and send them to Mexico to acquire the state of Yucatan. Yucatan was specifically chosen because it was close to French reinforcements in the Windward Islands, and because if he went to war with the British after the war ended, he would be able to annex British Honduras to the south. In a war seen as a jingoistic attempt by Napoleon to project French power to the Americas, the French shipped tens of thousands of troops to the Americas and battered Mexican armies sent to defend Mexico. The war was also fought in Europe, Africa, and Asia, as the French fought Mexican navies on the high seas. In September 1862, Queen Victoria I of the United Kingdom decided to intervene in the war, and her forces occupied Puducherry in India and her fleets fought French ships in the Atlantic. The war was one of the many "world wars" France fought with Britain, and it was the fourth Anglo-French War since 1836.

Background
France used to be one of the largest colonial empires, having arrived in the Americas shortly after Spain did in 1492. France colonized up the Mississippi River, settling in present-day Canada and the central United States. However, colonial warfare with England/Great Britain into the mid-1700s left France dispossessed of much of their territory in North America, with France ceding Canada to the British and the Louisiana Territory to Spain as a part of the 1763 Treaty of Paris that ended the Seven Years' War. The French lost all of continental North America, but maintained colonies on the islands of Saint-Domingue (now known as Haiti), Guadeloupe, and Martinique and a land colony in French Guiana on the coast of northern South America. France lost Saint-Domingue to a slave revolt in 1802, and although Spain gave Louisiana back to the French as a part of a treaty with them following the French Revolutionary Wars, Emperor Napoleon I sold it to the growing United States for $15,000,000. France's position in the Americas as a major power looked far shorter than it had when the first French explorers found the Americas in the 1500s, and they clung to their three last colonies.

The event that triggered the war was the Guianese Rebellion of 1858. The French Anarcho-Liberals, who had been put down in France proper, also rose in rebellion abroad in French Guiana, and without the presence of a French army in the region, the Anarcho-Liberals occupied the country. The French were unable to build any armies or navies from the area, effectively leaving them confined to the Windward Islands. Emperor Napoleon III of the Second French Empire found this to be an affront to national pride, so he decided to formulate a plan to reaffirm French status as a superpower.

He looked at the Americas' political situation: the Confederate States were in rebellion in the southern half of the United States and locked in a bloody civil war with the Union; Brazil and Bolivia were in a constant state of warfare in central South America, Chile and Argentina fought a border war, and other countries had unstable and corrupt governments. Napoleon knew that it was unlikely for an invasion of South America to succeed, because his main foothold on the island was under rebel occupation and it would take months for any French army to land in the area and retake it, before France could focus on taking over more lands. However, a new situation presented itself when he learned of Mexico's political status. Mexico had just lost much of their northern California Territory in a war with the United States and were confined to Idaho, parts of Colorado, Nevada, California, Arizona, New Mexico, and western Texas. The government of Mexico was weak, as the presidency changed several times during the Mexican-American War and resulted in a fractured country, divided between the mestizos (half-white, half Indian) and Amerindians and the wealthy criollos (white Spaniards). Napoleon also noticed that Mexico bordered the British colony of British Honduras, Britain's only colony in Central America. In the event of a war with Britain, French troops could quickly occupy Honduras and bring the British to their knees.

Napoleon secured backing for the war by warmongers, and he ordered the construction of ammuniton, canned food, small arms, and artillery factories across France. He also built up two armies in France, both reaching above 60,000 troops each. He also ordered the construction of a large fleet at Dunkirk, with exactly 100 clipper transports and men-of-war. However, the quota that he demanded of France was too large, and it would be nearly impossible to complete the task within five years. Napoleon, impatient, decided to take all of the ships already constructed and board 22,000 French troops under General Robert Boulanger (the French 7th Army) onto the vessels, bound for the Gulf of Mexico.

The voyage across the Atlantic took weeks, and the navy reached its destination in July 1861. On 30 July 1861, with the full backing of the French people, Napoleon issued a declaration of war against Mexico, with the acquisition of the Yucatan Peninsula as his casus belli. Mexico, led by President Benito Juarez, was ill-prepared for the war, and the French surprise attack was utterly successful in catching Mexico off guard.

1861
In the first year of the war, the French army landed at Bacalar on the eastern coast of the Yucatan Peninsula, and the French 7th Army began to occupy the area. Napoleon ordered the construction of ships at the drydocks of Martinique and Guadeloupe as well as the recruitment of Afro-Antillean regular infantry. When their training was complete, he shipped them to Yucatan to reinforce the French army, which lost several of its troops to tropical disease. The first year of the war did not see any combatant deaths, and it was merely a year of occupying regions for France.

1862
1862 was the first real year of the war, and it started off with a major battle at Campeche. The French army occupied Campeche, and Napoleon decided to sent Gustave Bosquet with 18,000 more French troops of the French 1st Army across the Atlantic Ocean to reinforce the French in the war effort. The French army had 22,056 troops at the time, and they were desperate for reinforcements as Mexican general Nicolas Koznitsky prepared for a counterattack. A Mexican army built up in Villahermosa, and on 30 March 1862 a 27,000-strong Mexican army under Gaspar Bocanegra left Villahermosa and engaged the French army at Campeche. The Mexican troops outnumbered the French by thousands, but the Mexican army was not as experienced as the French, whose troops were better-equipped, better-trained, better-led, and in better morale. The French army was victorious over Mexico, leaving 14,034 Mexican troops and 5,489 French soldiers dead or wounded.

In response to this initial defeat, Mexico decided to hit the French fleet of Henri Dubail, the 18-ship French 7th Fleet. The French Navy rounded Cuba every so often and dropped off Antillean reinforcements at Bacalar in quick transportations, so the 22-ship Mexican 1st Fleet intercepted the French 7th Fleet in the Yucatan Channel. The Mexicans were victorious, but the battle cost only 2 ships for France. For Mexico, it boosted their morale, as they defeated a great power in battle. However, the French leadership ignored the defeat and sent the navy back Europe-bound and across the Atlantic Ocean to pick up more reinforcements.

The French army continued to occupy lands in Yucatan, cutting off the large Yucatan city of Merida from the rest of Mexico. With Mexico in a dire state and France likely to expand its aims to conquering more lands, the United Kingdom decided to get involved. Queen Victoria I declared war on France and started a war of containment against France, demanding that France demobilize and cut down their army and military spending to a certain number and also give them a large portion of their tax money. France refused these outrageous terms, and the two countries went to war.

1863
The New Year of 1863 started off horrible for the French. Their navy, carrying Gustave Bosquet's French 1st Army across the Atlantic Ocean, had been attacked several times by the Mexican Navy and lost many of their ships. By 5 January, there were only 6 ships left. The French army disembarked at Bacalar, with 18,000 French regular infantry, cavalry, and artillery joining the also-large French army already in the Yucatan. However, as the navy headed to the Windwards to pick up more French troops, they were intercepted by the 56-ship British fleet of Admiral Richard Havelock. The British navy tore the French ships to floatsam, destroying the whole fleet. The French army in Yucatan was stranded with 36,000 troops, and the flow of reinforcements was temporarily disabled.

Nevertheess, the French army remained vigilant. On 15 January 1863, they scored a victory over a 6,000-strong Mexican army under Martin Reyes in a second Battle of Campeche, completely wiping it out with only 868 losses. On 2 February, the French were once more victorious at Bacalar, destroying the 11,000-strong Mexican 2nd Army under Francisco Gonzalez; 4,531 Mexican troops and 1,222 French troops were killed. The victory was followed up with the encirclement and capture of Merida on 19 February 1863 in a battle that cost only 300 French casualties while a Mexican army of 6,285 troops was eradicated.

Around the same time, Mexican forces occupied Madagascar, a French possession since December 1860 when they overthrew the Merina Dynasty. There was no resistance, but Thierry Forey rose an army in the mountainous region of Tanarive (present-day Antanarivo) and went on the defense. The Mexican Army was very strong and backed up by a navy, but they did not lure out the French, and the Madagascar front was stalemate.

On 28 November, the French Army pushed inland from Yucatan, having destroyed all Mexican resistance and grabbed all of the peninsula. They proceeded to the Veracruz region, and a 9,000-strong Mexican 3rd Army under General Bernardo Zuloaga met the 20,685-strong French army of Boulanger (Bosquet's army was occupying Tuxtla). The armies met in the Battle of Minatitlan, which was another French victory. 6,219 Mexican and 1,063 French troops were lost, and the Mexican army withdew. The remnants of the Mexican army were destroyed by Boulanger's army at the 18 December Battle of Oaxaca with only 227 French losses.

The year of 1864 ended with another French victory, one far away from the main scene of the war. At Tanarive, the 11,850-strong Mexican army in Madagascar under Francisco Gonzalez attacked the 12,000-strong French army under General Forey, but they were held back in the mountainous positions. The assault failed, and 2,407 French and 5,096 Mexican troops were killed in the battle. The Mexican army withdrew, and the French settled into their positions, preparing for further battle.